


Lost in Lies

by Tarlan



Category: Alien 3 (1992), Alien Series
Genre: Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-26
Updated: 2006-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:53:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morse reflects on the events on Fiorina, and on the lie they told concerning one of the survivors of the Sulaco... Hicks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in Lies

Morse looked back as he reached the final doorway out of the complex, giving a disbelieving grin as he stared round the correction facility that had been his home for so many years. Of all the brethren and their prison wardens, only he had survived the destruction wrought by the alien. His gaze came to rest, momentarily, on the gurney that claimed Bishop's full attention, before one of the guards shoved him onwards and he grimaced in pain as he turned away. Hobbling forward, he tried to put as little weight as possible on his injured leg as he left the facility behind him.

Morse knew he held little importance to Bishop and, most probably, would already be dead if Bishop had not wanted at least one person left alive who could tell the story of what had happened here on Fiorina 161. As he limped onwards, he wondered at how much he should tell them.

Situated about a mile ahead of him, he could see the dropship used to transport the Weyland-Yutani personnel down to the surface but Morse knew a far larger ship orbited high above the stormy atmosphere. This ship had raced to Fiorina as soon as Andrews reported the crashed Emergency Escape Vehicle; though Morse had a strong feeling it had already been on an intercept course with the ship Ripley had called the Sulaco. Certainly, that would explain why it reached Fiorina so swiftly.

Thoughts of Lieutenant Ripley dulled some of his pleasure at still being alive.

They had never told her of the lie, not even during those last few minutes before she fell backwards into the molten vat of lead, taking the unborn alien queen with her to her death. He regretted that now, feeling she had deserved to know that one of her crew members had survived the crash.

Dillon had started the lie, seeing the injured man as a potential acolyte for their growing order for, without fresh blood, he believed they would stagnate. Unfortunately, there had been little chance of anyone else wanting to swell their numbers by coming to this barren and forsaken planet, with its lice and lack of technology. Fiorina had been one of those inhospitable planets, originally destined to be processed for settlers, but Weyland-Yutani had abandoned that plan, swiftly, due to the lice that defied all methods of eradication. Instead, they decided to strip mine the planet.

Only a month before, Andrews had made the brethren aware that the next supply ship would take the last of their custodians away for good, for Weyland-Yutani saw no reason to continue guarding this small group of men. To the mighty corporation, they were of no importance now Weyland-Yutani had stripped the planet of all but the deepest pockets of minerals and ores. Other planets provided those materials at a far lower mining cost.

According to Andrews, the supply ship would continue to come every six months but Dillon knew they had to reach a level of self-sufficiency fast for there were never any guarantees with Weyland-Yutani. This small, desolate planet could easily be buried in paperwork, and then conveniently forgotten. After all, they were nowhere near the ordinary space lanes, and in all the time he had been imprisoned here, Morse had known of no other ships landing.

That thought took him back to the Sulaco's EEV, and to the rush to check for other survivors after Clemens witnessed the crash and found Ripley on the beach. The child had already succumbed to the sea, drowned in her cryotube, though none could understand how the canopy had gained the fist-sized hole, especially as the ragged edges seemed too smooth to be the result of the impact.

All had felt sorrow for the loss of the child. She had been very pretty, and so small, like a little doll.

The marine had still been in stasis, sealed inside his cryotube with half his torso and face hidden beneath pristine white bandages. In the final cryotube, they discovered the remnants of a deactivated android but it was beyond their abilities to repair and quickly discarded as scrap.

Faking the marine's death had been easy. They swapped his body with poor Travis, who had died only a few days before after slipping from a gantry. Completely smashing in Travis's head, and swathing his torso in heavy bandaging had fooled Ripley fooled easily enough. They destroyed the 'evidence' soon after as they committed the mummy-wrapped bodies of both man and child to the fiery pit of lead.

The plan had been to hide the injured marine for the few remaining weeks until Andrews and Aaron left to take up stations on other prison worlds. Once they had gone, there would have been no one left on Fiorina to care that they had gained an extra man, giving them six months to persuade the marine to stay with them... and Dillon could be very persuasive.

As Clemens had planned to stay on with them, Dillon had let the doctor in on the deception so he could attend to the marine's injuries, though some had feared Clemens would reveal all to the woman. They knew Clemens had slept with Ripley, with the knowledge stirring up old memories and desires within the rest of them. Even poor Golic had felt the tension in the atmosphere, leading to his increased instability.

Poor Golic... the man had caused the deaths of so many of the brethren through his insane belief that the monster did not intend to kill him, having allowed him to live twice. Morse smirked. Perhaps the stench of the man had put the creature off on those occasions when more fragrant meals were at hand.

Of all those on Fiorina, only the marine had been safe from the creature, hidden away in a sealed room while they awaited the departure of Andrews and Aaron. Most had volunteered to watch over the marine during the terrible events that followed, and yet no one had slipped up, revealing the marine's presence to Ripley, Andrews or Aaron.

Morse paused in thought for a moment to wonder how the Weyland-Yutani forces had found the marine so easily, and then he berated his stupidity, recalling that all marines and colonists carried subcutaneous homing locators. They could have scanned the entire complex on their way down, leading them straight to the marine...and to Ripley.

The ramp descended and Morse limped into the dropship, still flanked by his Weyland-Yutani guards. High above, he knew the mothership would be in geo-synchronous orbit as she awaited the return of her children. He smiled at the fanciful thought, wondering if she would consider him one of her children too.

Across the compartment, Morse watched as they strapped in the gurney, seeing a slight head movement as the marine registered the change even within his unconsciousness. A sharp push toppled Morse into his seat, and he held still as the guards affixed his safety harness before taking their own seats. Morse listened stealthily to the exchange between Bishop and the lead doctor.

"Does he carry one of them?"

Morse knew Bishop was talking about the alien, knowing from Ripley that it incubated inside a warm host. Enlightenment dawned as he recalled the dead ox, and the strange spidery hand that they had found beneath the carcass. Then he thought about the little girl, and the hole in her cryo-tube's canopy. Had it tried to reach her and been thrown from the ship on impact? Had it raced towards the nearest warm-blooded host on the planet -- a living host that had not already been taken by one of its kind?

He smiled slyly again. Perhaps Clemens should consider himself lucky that it had not found him at the same time he found Ripley. At least his death had been relatively swift and painless, like a blast shot to the brain. Others had not been so lucky, he thought, as he recalled their screams while the monster tore into their flesh.

The doctor finished scanning the marine's chest and sounded disappointed. "No. He's clean."

"Damn! Then we have no choice but to drain the molten lead and see if we can filter out the alien DNA."

"Croner will not be pleased."

"Croner should not have underestimated these creatures in the first place, or sent Carter Burke to oversee the mission. Burke was an ambitious fool." Bishop strapped himself into the seat next to the doctor as the engines fired up. "Is there any chance something survived on LV-426?"

"Nothing close to the colony."

"What about the original alien ship containing the eggs?"

"It lay within the blast radius. It would have been obliterated."

"Damn," Bishop said more softly this time. "The Bishop unit stopped functioning before it could send all its alien autopsy and observation reports. Someone took the processor chip from the unit so we can't even reconstruct the data...which means all the knowledge we have of the hive must come from Hicks."

Morse made it look as if he had not overheard any of their conversation, hiding a small smile as he recalled seeing Ripley with the android. Had she destroyed the chip rather than allow any information fall into the wrong hands? He caught the doctor's sly look in his direction from the corner of his eye. They probably believed he was too exhausted from the terrible events of the past few days to be aware of their interest in him.

"What about that one?"

"He's the only left who had any contact with this alien... and with Ripley."

Morse knew what that meant. Once he gave up all the information he had on the events on Fiorina, then he would be a liability and they would silence him. The marine would suffer the same fate once they had all he knew of the aliens. Weyland-Yutani could not afford to have anyone discover their plans to bring one of the aliens in for study at their Bio-weapons research facility, especially as Ripley had told Clemens that they had sacrificed an entire colony and a corps of marines to this end.

Morse felt a moment of regret for the marine, seeing parallels in their misfortunes. They had both survived a living nightmare only to fall into the deadly hands of the corporation. Then he snarled softly, wondering why he was even bothering to think about the marine, let alone care whether he lived or died.

What was his name? he thought. Hicks, yes, that's it.

In Morse's world, it was every man for himself, or so it had seemed once the killings began on Fiorina -- and he had been a consummate survivor. Yet, as those survival instincts started to kick in again, he recognized the advantage of having a trained soldier on his side, even an injured one like Hicks. The marines would have trained Hicks to open security locks, access computers... and to kill swiftly and soundlessly when need be. It seemed to Morse that any escape plan could only benefit from having Hicks on his side. It could even mean the difference between living and dying -- and Morse had no intention of dying.

He sank back against the hard foam of his seat and closed his eyes as the gravity forces increased, feeling them lessen dramatically once the ship cleared the atmosphere. He sighed in relief as the pain in his leg ebbed with the lessening of pressure. There had been a time when he believed he would never leave Fiorina 161 while still breathing; having believed so deeply in Dillon and his new order but, now the planet was behind him, he was glad to be off that godforsaken world.

Hicks moaned softly, rolling his head until he faced Morse, and Morse saw the single, un-bandaged eye open. By now, the doctor and Bishop had unstrapped from their seats, and he saw the doctor produce a hypodermic and slide the fine needle into an exposed vein in the marine's arm.

"That should help with the pain, Corporal Hicks."

"Where am I?"

His voice was soft and hoarse, barely more than a whisper but Morse had always had keen hearing to go with his double-Y chromosomes.

"You're safe now, Corporal."

"Bishop? Where's Ripley? Did she make it back?"

Bishop seemed confused, and then Morse recalled the shock on Ripley's face when confronted with this Bishop. The features were almost the same as the android they had dumped on the waste heap but perhaps Hicks had not seen that android version destroyed. Morse realized it was possible that Bishop and Ripley has sedated Hicks and placed him into his cryotube long before whatever fate overcame that android.

"Ripley's dead."

A shadow of pain crossed what Morse could see of the marine's face, pain that had little to do with Hick's injuries.

"And Newt?"

Ripley had referred to the girl as 'Newt' too, he thought.

"I'm sorry. She didn't make it either."

Infinite sadness filled the single green eye, and a moment of weakness allowed a tear to form and roll down the exposed cheek leaving Morse genuinely saddened.

"At least it would have been fast..."

Bishop frowned again, no doubt wondering how Hicks could know how fast or slow his shipmates had died, for Hicks had been unconscious until just a few moments ago. He saw Bishop flick a sideways glance at the doctor, who displayed the same confusion, but Bishop did not ask for any clarification from Hicks. Instead, he gave a surreptitious nod towards the doctor and smiled down at the marine as the sedating drug sent Hicks back to sleep.

The ship came to rest inside the mothership and, this time, the gurney preceded him along the corridors and into the medlab. Finally, someone approached to take care of his injured leg and he grimaced as the doctor cleaned and properly dressed the wound.

****

Hicks awoke to a world of pain, moaning softly as his acid-burned flesh protested at any movement. A man in a white suit hovered over him, pulling back his eyelid and dazzling him with a tiny beam from a small torch. Relief flooded him as the doctor injected the contents of a hypo into the IV line and he sighed, letting his head loll against the pillow.

He let his eye open slowly, gradually taking in the room surrounding him. It was familiar to him in an unwholesome way, reminding him of the medlab at Hadley's Hope. Beyond a glass partition, he could see three stasis tubes. At the colony, these tubes had held the hand-like face huggers that the doctors had surgically removed from infected colonists but, here, the tubes were empty. He tightened his lips, wondering if this ship had been sent to rendezvous with the Sulaco in the belief that Carter Burke had succeeded in his mission to 'impregnate' Ripley and Newt with alien embryos, so Weyland-Yutani could smuggle them to earth for experimentation.

A terrible new thought filled him. Ripley had never returned from her attempt to rescue Newt, leaving him alone with Bishop while at his most vulnerable. As the only living creature left on the planet, Bishop could have impregnated him with one of the aliens, easily, to fulfill some secret order on behalf of Weyland-Yutani.

His hand flew to his chest, wondering if he would even be able to tell its existence by touch alone -- but all he could feel was his own rapid heartbeat.

"Please... you must try to relax or I must sedate you again."

"Is there one inside me?"

"No."

Hicks stared hard at the doctor, uncertain if he should trust the word of his stranger but then he realized he had no choice. If one of those creatures was inside him, then he was already dead. If not, then all he had to fear was the Company, for he knew too much about its involvement in the deaths of the colonists and the rest of his unit. He knew from Ripley that Burke had deliberately sent the colonists into that alien ship, knowing what might happen to them, and all for the chance of adding that unique organism to the Weyland-Yutani Bio-weapons program.

The door opened and Hicks relaxed just a fraction as Bishop came up to his bedside.

"Corporal Hicks, you'll be pleased to know the grafts are doing very nicely. Doctor Yu Sang is an expert in such procedures and doubts you will even have scar tissue. Your sight is another matter, unfortunately. A cornea graft has corrected some of the damage but you will never regain perfect vision in that eye."

Hicks reached up to his face as the words penetrated the fog in his mind. He thought his pain was due to the acid burns but now realized the pain could be the result of surgery to mend the scarring. He sighed in relief, knowing the doctors would not have bothered to repair his damaged skin if his death was imminent from an emerging alien.

"What happened after Ripley left to save Newt?"

Bishop gave a sad smile. "I stayed for as long as I could... and then I had to leave or risk your death too."

Hicks closed his one good eye as he remembered the strong-willed woman who had refused to leave LV-426 without the little girl.

"Ellen," he said softly, wishing he could have known her better... but at least the destruction of Hadley's Hope meant her and Newt would have died long before an alien had time to gestate within them.

"Your superiors will need to debrief you later, but rest now, Corporal."

Feeling a heaviness invade him as the doctor added a drug to his IV line, Hicks closed his eyes. He drifted off with the memories of a little girl with a grimy face, and the woman who had left safety rather than allow that child to face a nightmare alone.

****

Morse had managed to delay the questioning for two days, citing his painful leg and the trauma for his loss of memory. He knew the mothership was still orbiting Fiorina while the Weyland-Yutani scientists figured out a way to extract any residual DNA from the molten lead. No one said anything to him outright but he overheard one person say that what little DNA they had gathered had been fused at the molecular level with Ripley's, and separating the two strands could be a lifetime's work... or more.

He had no idea how much longer Bishop's people would persevere in their DNA gathering but he had a strong feeling they had reached a point where they believed further effort would be futile.

When the chance came to escape from his holding quarters, Morse took it, leaving the guard unconscious, tied and gagged under the covers. The temptation to kill had been strong but Morse knew that could only add to his problems. Instead, he pulled on the guard's uniform and visor, and then walked through the corridors with purposeful steps, hoping to fool anyone he met. No one so much as glanced in his direction and, soon enough, he reached the door to the medlab.

He stepped inside and flicked a glance along the line of beds until he came to the one occupied by a familiar figure... Corporal Hicks. Morse strode up and pulled the curtain around the bed to cut them off from sight of the other laboratory and anyone who might walk in unexpected. He reached over and shook Hick's good arm, waiting as the single green eye opened sleepily.

"Hicks?" Hicks looked up at him in confusion. "Hicks? My name is Morse, and we have to get out of here."

"What..?"

Morse put a hand over the marine's mouth to silence him.

"I don't know what you've been told but we're both in danger. As soon as they know everything about the aliens, they'll kill us. We have to escape now."

Hicks shrugged off the hand from his mouth. "Who the hell are you?"

"Look... You were unconscious when we pulled you out of the EEV so you won't remember Fiorina 161 or..."

"The EEV?"

Morse stared down at the injured man, wondering what he could say to prove that Bishop and the doctors had been lying to him over Ripley's death. However, he had not exactly been close to the woman, and certainly not close enough for her to reveal any personal details that might sway Hicks. He decided to tell the truth, pure and simple.

"The EEV crashed into the sea on Fiorina 161. There were four on-board. You, Ripley, a girl and a damaged android. We told Ripley you died in the crash because you were male. Dillon wanted to add more men to our brotherhood and, with six months between supply ships, he figured he could persuade you to stay with us."

Hicks seemed lost in thought for a moment. "No... The EEV was never built to stand re-entry. It's supposed to eject into space and send out a locator signal... So why would it crash-land on a planet?"

Morse could hear the disbelief in Hick's voice but had no answer for him. "How would I know...? Unless it ejected into the gravity pull... just bad luck."

"Shouldn't happen..." Hicks mused softly, but Morse sighed for at least Hicks was prepared to consider the possibility. He continued on, hoping something would strike a chord within the marine.

"The girl drowned in her cryotube... there was a fist-sized hole, smooth edged, right above her face." He halted, looking down at Hick's in concern. "I remember Ripley mentioning those things had acid for blood."

The single green eye widened first with shock, and then narrowed with anguish.

"Ripley made Clemens perform an autopsy on the girl, saying it was to check for signs of some virulent disease. Didn't take long to figure out what she'd really been looking for. Except, it hadn't got to the girl. It got to shore and found another body to grow in."

"Another human?" Morse shook his head. "What happened to the alien after it emerged?"

"It killed several of the brothers before Ripley told us what we were dealing with and helped organize a bug hunt. Eventually, we killed the bastard, and Ripley took care of the other one on her own."

"Two of them?" Hicks looked horrified but then the soldier took control once more. "Is Ripley dead?"

Morse nodded; recalling the way Ripley had closed her eyes and fallen backward into the molten lead, taking the gestating queen with her.

"She killed herself rather than let Bishop get hold of the alien queen inside her."

The single eye filled with sorrow. "Wait... if Bishop was damaged then..."

"We threw the Bishop you knew on the scrap heap. The one you've seen here is the real one; he's the human Bishop who designed the android. One of those aliens ripped the android apart on-board your ship... but Ripley figured it must have laid a couple of them eggs before then... or the android Bishop could have brought two eggs on-board to fulfill his programming from Weyland-Yutani."

"Only two?"

"As far as anyone knew." Morse let these new facts sink in, watching closely for any sign that he had made it through to the marine.

"They wanted a live alien, and Burke had been prepared to sacrifice Ripley and Newt to get two of the creatures smuggled onto Earth. We'd lost the dropship, and Bishop went to the communications array to bring the second dropship down from the Sulaco. It was just me, Ripley and Newt by then. All the rest were gone, including Burke... and then we lost Newt. Almost had her back before one of the Aliens grabbed her.

We needed to get back to the dropship, and that's when I got sprayed in acid. Had to kill one of them things up-close... acid for blood. Ate right through my body armor... fumes burned my face...

Ripley got me to the dropship, and then she went back for Newt, using the locator band she'd placed on her just in case."

He fell silent, lost in memories now that he was no longer lost within the lies spun by those working for Weyland-Yutani.

"I've no idea what happened after that. Bishop sedated me... and that's all I remember." He gave a shuddering sigh. "When I saw Bishop, and he said Ripley and Newt never made it... I figured he meant she never made it back to the dropship before the place blew apart."

"She and the girl made it that far."

"What do they want with me?"

"The same thing they want from me... everything we know about the aliens... and once they have that..."

Morse let his words hang, knowing the marine could figure that out easily enough as he and his unit had already had a taste of Weyland-Yutani's total disregard for human life through their obsession with the alien life form. From what Morse had gleaned from Ripley, and through overheard conversations, they had already sacrificed a whole colony of men, women and children, so adding two more to the body count would be nothing in comparison.

"If they don't have an alien specimen, then what use is anything we tell them?"

"Ripley threw herself into a vat of molten lead, and Bishops' scientists are draining that vat, searching for alien DNA."

"If they find it then her sacrifice was for nothing."

Morse frowned, suddenly realizing where this was going. He had hoped to rope the marine into an escape attempt, but now he wondered if those plans might have been blown sky high.

"We can't let them get that DNA. You've seen what just one of those creatures can do... and I've seen what a whole hive can do to a colony... and my team. If just one of those creatures got loose on Earth, then it would be the end of life as we know it. People fleeing for their lives would carry the aliens to every planet across the sector."

"That's not my problem. My problem is getting off this ship alive."

"Fiorina? Now I know that name... it's a prison planet." Hicks eyed Morse belligerently.

"Yes... it was, and it held some of the meanest murderers and rapists... the double-Y chromosome variety. I'm not going to lie to you and say I was just a guard or something. I was mean sonuvabitch and I liked to hurt people, but given the choice of staying behind on Fiorina or being sent to some other prison planet, I chose to join the brotherhood."

Morse laughed harshly. "Place was riddled with lice, and the terraforming got stopped partway through, leaving the air barely breathable and the planet bloody inhospitable for the most part... but at least I could walk in what passed for daylight down there. If I don't figure out a way to escape from here then I'm either dead, or I'll be sent to a prison planet where I'd need a shine-job on my eyes just to see who's sneaking up on me in the dark."

"No." Hicks shook his head. "No... There's one thing that doesn't add up. If they mean to kill me, then why bother with the skin grafts."

"Are you so sure they've done any?"

Hicks realized that he had only Bishops' word for it, having not seen beneath the bandages for himself. With trembling fingers, he began to strip off the bandage covering one side of his face. Morse looked around and found a highly polished steel bowl that Hicks could use as a mirror.

Hicks saw the truth in Morse's words reflected back from the still ruined face. He let his eyes slide sideways at Morse's soft words.

"I know a doc who can give you back your face... makes a living out of it, though his clients tend to want new faces rather than repairs on old ones." He paused, as if waiting for some response from Hicks but it seemed Hicks could think of nothing to say.

Even if Morse was just another in a string of liars, he was still someone Hicks could use to help him escape from the clutches of Weyland-Yutani. It would mean going on the run, with the strong likelihood that Bishop's people would frame him for the destruction of Hadley's Hope and his team. Yet, what choice did either of them have? Weyland-Yutani owned Earth's government, and most of the off-world colonies. The few independent colonies did not have the power to confront Weyland-Yutani over its actions, even if Hicks could prove his innocence.

"Are you with me?"

Hicks nodded, head lowered in resignation to the inevitable as he replaced the bandages. He frowned, and then raised his head defiantly, shoving back the covers and climbing from the bed.

"I have an idea how we can escape."

****

With so much activity focused on the smelt works on Fiorina, no one noticed the unauthorized departure of one of the dropships but then, Hicks had made sure the computer ignored the warnings. In turn, the computer did not inform the flight control center, and so Hicks glided down towards the planet, waiting until they were hidden within the atmosphere before changing course to skim around the planet to the far side.

No one would notice when the dropship's signal disappeared off the radar, and he set a course perpendicular to the planet, wanting to use the cover of the planet for as long as possible. Once out of range, he changed course several times until, finally, they were heading away from the densely populated planets close to Earth, and as far away as possible from LV-426.

As far as Hicks was concerned, he wanted to be as far away from that hellhole as humanly possible, not wanting to take a gamble in case they had not destroyed all of the aliens. For all he knew, there could be other nests filled with dormant eggs, just waiting for a warm host to stumble upon them.

He thought about Ellen Ripley and the fused DNA with the Alien queen. Destroying what little DNA Bishop had collected would have been difficult and unnecessary, for there was no technology that could separate the strands. He knew Weyland-Yutani would have better fortune trying to find another nest of the aliens, knowing they must have originated from somewhere other than LV-426. Hicks could only hope that, wherever that planet lay, it would be no place close to where he and Morse were headed.

Morse had pulled up the co-ordinates of an independent colony, certain the doctor Hicks needed would still be located there.

It would take four months to reach the planet, and Hicks did not intend to stay awake through the long months with only Morse for company. Therefore, he set up two cryotubes, shuddering slightly as he considered how his last journey had ended up on Fiorina.

With the on-board computer programmed to wake them should any ship come within range of their sensors, Hicks lay down on the cryobed and allowed Morse to fit the last of the medical sensors to his body. It took an effort to lay still but he had to trust Morse, knowing the man could have killed him before now if that had been his true intention.

Hicks closed his eyes as the canopy began to close.

"Sweet dreams," called Morse from his own cryotube, and Hicks smiled grimly. Cryosleep was supposed to shut done all the higher functions of the brain, denying the sleeper any dreams, but Hicks knew from personal experience that this was not always the case.

As the canopy locked into place, he sent his memories back to LV-426, focusing on the woman who had faced her greatest nightmare with more honor and bravery than some of his team had. Ellen Ripley smiled back at him from the image he held in his mind, and he stepped up to her side, caressing her cheek gently.

She gave him a knowing grin as she hefted the two guns she had taped together for maximum firepower. He grinned back at her, cradling his own gun in the crook of his elbow, knowing she would be there to help him fight any monsters he found in his dreams -- alien or human.

Then he slept, hoping he would wake up to discover it had all been just another nightmare.

THE END


End file.
